TREES OF NORTH AMERICA 



about f ' long, with acute scales, pale green below, light red and tipped with clusters of long 

 white hair at apex, and pilose on the back. Fruit: strobiles erect, sessile, short-stalked, 

 pubescent, !'-!' long, about f thick; nut ellipsoidal to obovoid, about ' long, rather 

 broader than its wing. 



A tree, with slightly aromatic bark and leaves, occasionally 100 high, with a trunk 

 3-4 in diameter, spreading and more or less pendulous branches forming a broad round- 

 topped head, and branchlets at first green and covered with long pale hairs, light orange- 

 brown and pilose during their first summer, becoming glabrous and light brown slightly 

 tinged with orange, and ultimately dull and darker. Winter-buds about \' long, some- 

 what viscid and covered with loose pale hairs during the summer, becoming light chest- 

 nut-brown, acute, and slightly puberulous in winter. Bark of young stems and of the 

 branches bright silvery gray or light orange color, very lustrous, separating into thin loose 

 persistent scales more or less rolled on the margins, becoming on old trees \' thick, reddish 



Fig. 195 



brown, and divided by narrow irregular fissures into large thin plates covered with minute 

 closely appressed scales, or sometimes dull yellowish brown (B. alleghaniensi* Britt.). 

 Wood heavy, very strong, hard, close-grained, light brown tinged with red, with thin nearly 

 white sapwood; largely used for floors, in the manufacture of furniture, button and tassel 

 moulds, boxes, the hubs of wheels, and for fuel. 



Distribution. Moist uplands, and southward often in swamps; one of the largest decid- 

 uous-leaved trees of northeastern America; Newfoundland and along the northern shores 

 of the Gulf of St. Lawrence to the valley of Rainy River, and southward to Long Island 

 (Cold Spring Harbor) and western New York, Pennsylvania, northern Delaware, south- 

 eastern Ohio, northern Indiana, southwestern Wisconsin, northern, northeastern and cen- 

 tral Iowa, and from the mountains of Virginia and West Virginia to the highest peaks of 

 North Carolina and Tennessee at altitudes between 3000 and 5000; very abundant and 

 of its largest size in the eastern provinces of Canada and in northern New York and New 

 England; small and rare in southern New England and southward. 



X Betula Purpusii Schn. believed to be a natural hybrid of B. lutea with B. pumila 

 var. glandulifera Regel has been found in Michigan and in Tamarack Swamps in Hennepin, 

 Pine and Anoka Counties, Minnesota. 



3. Betula nigra L. Red Birch. River Birch. 



Leaves rhombic-ovate, acute, abruptly or gradually narrowed and cuneate at base, 

 doubly serrate, and on vigorous young branches often more or less laciniately cut into acute 



